I think it makes a big difference if you ask for the money yourself. And what it's for. An iPod? Not very acceptable. But there was a whole kerfuffle about a woman who needed an operation and had no health insurance, and that seemed (more) legitimate. She still got harangued by a lot of people.

[edit: Cassie Claire also had a lot of people supporting her for barefaced plagiarism.]

Yeah, I was trying not to remember that bit. Sigh.

I keep seeing the Cassie thing referenced but I'm not sure I remember the deal.

I whined so much that a group of lovely people sent me to LA. But I am a giant kvetch. I was not thinking that they would do that, and were it not for the check being, you know, written already, might not have accepted graciously. (The PTB kind of took the trip back as revenge, too. bastards.) Short answer being I'm pretty broke, but I would die a hundred times before I'd do that. I just have good friends that helped me once. Which is important for me to remember when I think people suck.

See, erika, that's a whole different kettle of fish. That, or sending someone cookies, or buying them LJ time, or whatever - THAT is one thing. CousinJean, however, is displaying the kind of infantile sense of entitlement that makes me want to get her head and smash it repeatedly into the wall.

...for some reason this pings me kind of the same way that the recent RWA kerfuffle did, inasmuch as there seems to be a quite astounding failure to understand how bloody priveleged one is, and that other people's lives are every bit as valuable and ordinary and precious and real as one's own, and quite often significantly shittier. Showing footage of Tiananmen Square to the tune of Don't Worry, Be Happy is something you can only do if you are incapable of making the imaginative leap to seeing that this thing really happened to real people not very long ago - and we LET it. And describing one's circumstances as desperate, when one is living with a parent, working part time and trying to get strangers to give you money so you can GIVE UP said part time job and still have a fancy wedding? REALLY indicates a lack of understanding about what poverty is. And work. And what it means to be an adult.

Others volunteering to help out a friend is a whole lot different than trolling for donations for oneself, Erika. Hell, my Best Friend is paying for my ticket out to see her, which is my Birthday/Christmas present, amounting to, oh, 4 times what I got her for those holidays, but she has lots of money and I don't and I would do the same for her in a hot second if the situations were reversed so it's cool.

Right, exactly. "I had the money to enable my friend to do X cool thing/have X thing/eat something other than baloney for the next three months and so I gave it to them" is totally fine--it's a gift. Feels different.

I keep seeing the Cassie thing referenced but I'm not sure I remember the deal.

The plagiarism thing or the computer? The computer was when... she and her roommates' apartment was broken into, and their computers were stolen, and a friend took up a collection to buy new ones? Collected thousands of dollars, if I remember correctly. And then there was an iPod involved somehow, but I didn't really follow it closely enough to be able to describe that bit.

Hey, my friends bought me an iPod. But that's okay, because I did absolutely nothing in return ("I am not a prostitute, mister! I'm a housewife. I have sex for free!"). Oh gee, you think it was a subtle hint to finish that Smallville WiP?

Back to work!

Aw, crap. Well, at least there's a soundtrack, now. Although I'm not sure how the angsty aliensexness of it will be affected by the accompaniment of Skee-Lo's "Mr. Morton" or Blind Melon's "My Hero Zero."

(Or Pizzicato Five's "Twiggy Twiggy" which I just ran across in a box under my bed, much to my delight.)